José María López: “We’re in a good position to win the championship tomorrow.”

Citroën’s José María López heads into tomorrow’s two races at Twin Ring Motegi poised to wrap up his third WTCC drivers’ championship from pole position. All the two-time champion has to do if is defend his points lead over Honda’s Tiago Monteiro and Citroën team-mate Yvan Muller.

The Argentinian will start from tenth for the opening race, courtesy of the reversed grid, but knows he has a great opportunity to wrap up the title two race weekends early starting from pole position for the main race.

“We’re in a good position,” said López. “If I don’t lose ten points tomorrow to Tiago, or 15 with Yvan I could be crowned champion, which is amazing. It’ll be a tough start for the reversed grid, so I’ll try to not do what I did last year on the reversed grid race when I didn’t finish; I’m keeping my fingers crossed.”

López racked up his 20th career pole position and is pulling away from Gabriele Tarquini who has the third most WTCC poles on 17, but the Argentinian doesn’t have enough races left in his WTCC career to catch up with Citroën team-mate Yvan Muller’s 29 before he leaves to join the Formula E championship in 2016-17.

López’s put on a commanding performance to take his sixth pole of the 2016 season, the only driver in the 1:55s all day, replicating his Qualifying 2 lap in the one-lap shootout and stopped Yvan Muller from claiming his second pole of the season.

“Q3 is about confidence, and I think I had a little bit more confidence in the car than the others”, he said. “The fact I knew Yvan hadn’t improved (on his Q2 lap) in Q3 gave me a bit more confidence, so this was key.

“It was just about putting all together on my last lap and I knew all I had to do was the same as I had in Q2, but I did a little bit better. I had a fantastic car today, it was team work, it’s not only me, so thanks to them.”